Ferry-Port on Craig
Tayport
|
|
|---|---|
 Tayport
|
|
| Tayport shown within Fife | |
| Population | 7,922 |
| OS grid reference | NO458287 |
| Council area | |
| Lieutenancy area | |
| Country | Scotland |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | TAYPORT |
| Postcode district | DD6 |
| Dialling code | 01382 |
| Police | Scottish |
| Fire | Scottish |
| Ambulance | Scottish |
| EU Parliament | Scotland |
| UK Parliament | |
| Scottish Parliament | |
Tayport, also known as Ferry-Port on Craig, is a town and burgh, and parish, in the county of Fife, Scotland, acting as a commuter town for Dundee. The motto of the Burgh is Te oportet alte ferri ("It is incumbent on you to carry yourself high"), a pun on Tayport at auld Tay Ferry.
Tayport lies close to the north east tip of Fife. To the north it looks across the River Tay to Broughty Ferry and Broughty Castle. To the east is the vast Tentsmuir Nature Reserve, an area of forested dunes measuring some 3 km from east to west and 6 km from north to south and edged by wide sands that continue all the way round to the mouth of the River Eden.
The civil parish of Ferry-Port on Craig has a population of 3,815 (in 2011).
The settlement was originally called Partan Craig, Gaelic for "Crab Rock". Over the following two hundred years English usage eroded many Gaelic place names in eastern Scotland and Partan Craig had become known as Portincragge by 1415 and as Port-in-Craige by the end of the 15th century. In 1598 the settlement received its burgh charter in the name of Ferry-Port on Craig.
In the 1850s, the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway Company established a railway service running from Edinburgh to Aberdeen that passed through Ferry-Port on Craig. They used the simpler name of "Tayport" for the town. This less cumbersome name soon caught on and over time, Tayport replaced Ferry-Port on Craig as the more common name.
A ferry service across the Tay was already well established when these lands were granted to the newly formed Arbroath Abbey about 1180. The abbey constructed shelter and lodgings for pilgrims making the trip between St Andrews and Arbroath via the ferry and this formed the core of a settlement that steadily grew over the centuries.
...
Wikipedia